1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a protocol conversion apparatus, a communication apparatus, a method and a program.
2. Related Art
As the network techniques spread in recent years, it has become possible to control home electric appliances through the network and acquire information from home electric appliances.
When conducting appliance control, a transmitting device and a receiving device need to use the same communication protocol to exchange control instructions and control data.
As to the communication protocol, there are a plurality of standards.
The ECHONET is standards mainly intended for white-colored home electric appliances, such as refrigerators, washing machines, electronic ovens and air conditioners, and sensors. The ECHONET determines the communication protocol, control instructions, and control data.
The UPnP basically determines the communication protocol, and control instructions and control data are determined every business world. For example, UPnP-IGD is determined for home router setting, and UPnP-AV is determined for AV device control.
If there are a plurality of protocols when constructing service, an application and a system in which devices present on a home network are collectively controlled, it is necessary to handle respective protocols. In this case, the application design becomes difficult because of model difference in protocols.
Furthermore, in actual programs as well, necessary modules corresponding to the protocols increase, and consequently the program becomes complicated. In addition, required computer resources (memories and CPU processing capabilities) also increase, resulting in an increased cost.
As for a solution to the complication caused by using a plurality of protocols, it can be solved by unifying a plurality of present protocols into one protocol. For example, systems of communication protocols, control instructions and control data defined by UPnP are highly flexible. Therefore, by converting other protocols to the UPnP protocol, they can be unified to the UPnP protocol. At this time, kinds and functions of home electric appliances are diversified, and there are also functions unique to manufactures. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare conversion rules for control instructions and control data between protocols every type and model of home electric appliance products.
In the conventional technique, the protocol conversion processing is fixedly generated as a program, and conducted in a protocol conversion apparatus (gateway). A method for conducting protocol conversion between the UPnP protocol and the IEEE 1394 protocol is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2003-8610. Therein, means for conducting the protocol conversion processing is fixedly incorporated in an apparatus.
With the advancement of home electric appliance development for improving the convenience for the users, addition of new functions which have not been present until then to home electric appliance products caused by development and appearance of new products, and resultant new addition of control instructions and control data to communication protocols, it becomes impossible for a conventional gateway that conducts fixedly programmed protocol conversion processing to cope the addition of the new control instructions and control data. Even if the program in the gateway is updated or new programs are added to the gateway, it takes long time to create the programs.